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You Can Help Protect The Botanic Garden from Outsized Development

A development entity led by Bruce Eichner has submitted a preapplication to the Department of City Planning (DCP) outlining a massive development it seeks to build adjacent to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The Civic Council calls upon the Park Slope community to oppose this project by signing an online petition sponsored by the ad hoc Crown Heights group which is rallying opposition and by making a donation to support a shadow study that will be undertaken by a professional planner.

The development, on the block bounded by Washington Avenue, Sullivan Place, Franklin Avenue, and Montgomery Street, would contain 1,450 housing units and cast shadows over the garden and its greenhouses. The preapplication statement signifies Eichner’s intention to file a formal rezoning application. Should DCP certify the application, it would launch a 6-month land use review process that would culminate in a vote by the City Council on the project.

The rezoning Eichner is proposing requests a more than 300% increase in the allowable density, from 3.0 FAR (Floor Area Ratio) to 9.7 FAR, and would result in a development equivalent to more than 40 stories when rooftop mechanical equipment and bulkheads are included. Moreover, despite including 50% market rate and 50% affordable units, the development would not be affordable to existing Crown Heights residents, whose median income of about $45,000 is well below the most affordable units in the project, which at 60% of area median income, would be affordable to families earning $62,580.

The Park Slope Civic Council’s Trustees have voted to oppose this proposed rezoning. The garden is a green oasis enjoyed by Brooklyn residents and visitors, and the scale and shadows of this development would forever undermine the sense of isolation from its urban context that are now enjoyed by users of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.